The Sunday school children: The little-known tragedy of the Sri Lankan Easter attacks - CNN

"He came in the car around 8:30 a.m., and they told him mass is
over now," said Bishop Joseph Ponniah, of St. Mary's
Cathedral in Batticaloa, eastern Sri Lanka. "Then he went to the
next church."

That timing mix-up saved the lives of hundreds of people inside
St. Mary's, who were already back in their homes by the time Azar
walked through the church gates, intent on murdering everyone
inside.

But his error proved catastrophic to the evangelical congregation
of the nearby Zion Church, where he went next.

CCTV footage obtained by CNN shows Azar walking down the lane to
the church at 8:51 a.m., wearing a pink polo shirt and tracksuit
pants, and carrying a heavy blue backpack.

It was the same style of bag used by the other suicide bombers
who carried out coordinated attacks on the morning of Easter
Sunday across Sri Lanka, followed by two more bombs later in
the day, killing more than 250 people

Refused entry

Inside the Zion Church, dozens of children had just finished
Sunday school. Videos of the session released later show them
praying and singing in circles moments before the attack.

After the school finished, some of the children had wandered
outside to enjoy their breakfast during the short break before
the main mass was due to begin at 9 a.m.

Azar approached the church entrance, intending to go inside the
building to inflict maximum damage. But he was foiled for a
second time -- stopped by two church officials, Ramesh
Raju and Rasalingam Sasikumar, before he got through
the door.

"Ramesh and Sashee were both trying to stop him from entering
the church," said Rajeevkaran Vimalaretnam, a 38-year-old
sound technician for the church. "They had apparently refused
permission for him to enter the church and asked him to leave."

Azar had been stopped because he looked suspicious,
Vimalaretnam added.

"I saw a man standing there with two bags wearing a cap and a
t-shirt. His dress code -- cap, the bag -- all of this looked
out of place," Vimalaretnam said. "No one comes to
church like that. He looked like he was going to a sporting
event."

When asked why he was carrying a large bag, Azar replied that
he wanted to film the church service. The officials said
they would need to seek permission from the pastor. As the
discussion was taking place, Vimalaretnam walked inside
the church, which he said already had around 500
people seated in the pews.

It was then that Azar seemingly decided to
cut his losses and detonate his bomb outside, where the
children who had just finished Sunday school
were gathering.

He killed 29 people, including the two men who had held him
back, Raju and Sasikumar -- now hailed as heroes for
saving the lives of many others.

"If he had walked inside and made his way to the center, I
would have died, too, "Vimalaretnam said.

"And the number of victims would have been in the region of 200
to 300 people."

"She looked perfect and beautiful"

Knowing that a greater disaster was averted is little
comfort to the families of those who died.

Fourteen of the victims were children from the Sunday
school. Siblings Sharon Stephen Shanthakumar,
12, and Sarah Hepzibah Shanthakumar, 10, were
among them.

They are the two eldest children of Vairaperumal and
Kaowsalya Shanthakumar, both born again Christians who
converted from Hinduism.

Kaowsalya, the children's 39-year-old mother, was on her way to
pick them up from Sunday school. She was 100 meters (328 foot)
away on a tuk tuk when she saw smoke rising from the church.

"As I got closer, I saw people standing outside," she said.
"They told me that a gas cylinder exploded. I told them that my
children were there at Sunday school, but they would not let me
in."

Her husband then arrived but they couldn't find their children,
so they rushed to the hospital.

"I saw the doctors trying to recover her heart beat by pumping
her chest," Shanthakumar said, of Sarah. "Then shortly
afterwards, they told me that she had died."

Apart from a small wound, she said her daughter did not appear
to be visibly hurt.

"She had been bleeding through both her ears," she said. "Apart
from that, she looked perfect and beautiful."

But it was different for their son Sharon.

"The next day my husband went to identify my son at the
church," she said. "They wouldn't let me see him. He was
completely charred. We had to identify him using his teeth."

The couple's youngest child, five-year-old Salisha
Stephen Shanthakumar, was not at Sunday school that day.
She is all her parents have left. Her mother said that since
the attack she has been quiet and withdrawn -- wondering where
her two best friends have gone.

"I saw everything burning"

Salisha's older siblings are memorialized alongside the other
victims on a large poster outside the Zion Church, which
remains closed following the attack.

Among the adults on the poster is Rajeevkaran Vimalaretnam's
mother, 64-year-old Vanaja Devi Vimalaretnam, who
also worked at the church.

After parking his bike outside the church, Vimalaretnam had
gone to chat with her at the entrance, where she was
handing out leaflets.

"My mother had been administering in that church for more
than 30 years," he said. "She invited me to come (for dinner)
if I had the time. I said I will and I patted her shoulder and
left."

Moments later, she was dead.

"I heard a huge explosion, and as I turned, I saw a huge fire
erupting," Vimalaretnam said.

"I shouted, Amma, and ran towards the back. I
looked around and I couldn't find her. Then I came out of the
church and saw her lying dead," he added. "I was lost, I didn't
know what to do."

The aftermath was chaos. CCTV footage shows people running away
from the church, screaming and crying as their loved ones
burned.

"I saw everything burning, including the vans and bikes parked
outside," Vimalaretnam said. "Then we tried our best to
save the people inside by breaking the walls."

The main exit door of the church was on fire, he said, so they
ran to the opposite end to break a wall and use a ladder to
pull people out to safety.

The fire brigade turned up a few minutes later, but it was
already too late for dozens of victims.

Center of radicalization

The massacre took place in Batticaloa, an eight-hour
drive east from the capital Colombo -- the city targeted by
most of the suicide bombers, and the focus of much of the media
coverage.

But the east of the country is a key part of the puzzle
explaining why the eight men and one woman who staged the
Easter attacks became radicalized.

Azar was from Kattankudy, a Muslim-majority town south of
Batticaloa, which appears to have become a recruitment ground
for the National Tawheed Jamath (NTJ) Islamist
extremist group which aligned itself with ISIS, and has
been blamed for the attacks on Easter Sunday.

Their ringleader, well-known hate preacher Zahran Hashim, blew
himself up in the Shangri-La hotel in Colombo, and his two
brothers and father followed suit almost a week later in a
house in Sainthamaruthu, south of Batticaloa, taking their
wives and children with them.

A state of emergency is in place in Sri Lanka, as police try to
round up the remaining members of the NTJ group.

In an , Sri Lanka's
President Maithripala Sirisena repeatedly denied that
he knew about intelligence, warning of an attack, sent weeks in
advance.

Sirisena asked the chief of police and the defense secretary to
resign, blaming them for failing to tell him or act upon
the threat.

As the security forces attempt to get the situation under
control, places of worship still feel like vulnerable
targets.

The Archbishop of Colombo, Cardinal Malcolm
Ranjith, has ordered that Catholic churches cancel mass
again this Sunday, and has urged Catholic schools to
remain closed. Many other places of worship are also postponing
services as a precaution.

As communities stay on high alert for future attacks, divisions
between religious groups are becoming more pronounced.

A Muslim living in Batticaloa told CNN that people are scared
to leave their homes due to increasing suspicion against them
from the rest of the community.

A mosque came under attack in Kuliyapitiya, north of Negombo,
during prayers on Wednesday night, with crowds hurling stones
at the building.

The Sri Lankan President's office has announced that the burqa
has been banned until further notice, describing the full face
veil as "a security risk and a flag of fundamentalism."

"It's a tense situation now," said Rajeevkaran
Vimalaretnam.

But he insisted he doesn't harbor any resentment to the Muslim
population.

"We are Christians... We worship the lord," he said. "We have
no vengeance towards anyone."

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